Monday, March 27, 2017

Andrew Jackson by D. C.

The main
argument throughout the documentary in the time period of Andrew Jackson
in American History, was to shine a light on the dilemma of the
relationship between the common man and government. Although Andrew
Jackson was not necessarily a common man for he had earned a rising
sense of fame due to his success as a General in the U.S. Army.
Throughout his life, Jackson was criticized for his steadfast opinions
and autocratic manner, but he nonetheless proved himself a savvy and
thoughtful politician. It was only after he had fully considered his
options that he made a decision–once that decision had been made,
however, he pursued it relentlessly, gradually grinding away at his
opponents until he got what he needed. In doing so, he helped modernize
the nation and forever define his term of office as the
mini-Enlightenment now known as Jacksonian America.

To
identify a purpose of the documentary we would need to envelop all of
the Jacksonian Age. I believe it is to give viewers an understanding of
what kind of mindset politicians and common men had of the era. More
specifically, it highlighted both sides of all conflicts and discussed
why/what actions were taken as well as evidence from written accounts by
the individuals in the time period. Such individuals voices included;
Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Rachel Jackson and John
Eaton. The voices that didn’t seem to shine as bright as theirs did
would be the ones of the common man, at least through the beginning of
the Jacksonian Era. Common men were not heard as well as they ought to
have been heard, the Electoral College spoke for them on political
matters which (on occasion) was infuriating.

In class
we discussed a lot of different topics from Jackson’s time but the one
that became more prominent to myself was how abusive he was with his
power. More specifically the power of the Presidential Veto. By over
exceeding his executive powers he used a veto in the U.S. Bank because
he felt that the Bank was an unfair monopoly and that it abused or might
abuse its significant power. Jackson went to great lengths to destroy
the Bank, a crusade that almost cost him the presidency in 1834 and
earned him an official censure by the Senate. Nonetheless, by 1837, he
had killed the Bank, as part of his lifelong distrust of credit. This
side of Jackson showed a new and different part of himself that I didn’t
see in the documentary.

One
historical questions or topics more or less we talked about was
Jackson’s King like qualities. A classmate brought up the similarities
between Jackson and Trump and everything sort of clicked because they
are very alike. A big Jacksonian characteristic was that he earned the
respect of the Americans who elected him largely by being an outsider
and a disruptive force chosen to break up existing Washington power
structures. This is something we see in President Trump. Towards the end
of class we were handed a political cartoon of the era depicting Andrew
Jackson as King. This cartoon from 1832 uses that theme to show
Jackson, dressed as a king, trampling on the Constitution and wielding
the veto. While the cartoon garnered support for the opposing Whig
Party, but it did little to thwart Jackson's desire to increase the
power of the presidency.

Any
unanswered questions? The only one I really have is if other political
parties ever got as dirty as Andrew Jackson’s? We know that President
Trump’s did but before the year 2000 is when I mean.